Politics

I am as much opposed to the principle of slavery as any man in the present acceptation or usage of the term, it is abused. I am opposed to abuseing [sic] that which God has decreed, to take a blessing, and make a curse of it. It is a great blessing to the seed of Adam to have the seed of Cain for servants.... Let this Church which is called the Kingdom of God on the earth; we will sommons [sic] the first presidency, the twelve, the high counsel, the Bishoprick [sic], and all the elders of Isreal [sic], suppose we summons them to apear [sic] here, and here declare that it is right to mingle our seed with the black race of Cain, that they shall come in with us and be pertakers [sic] with us of all the blessings God has given to us. On that very day, and hour we should do so, the priesthood is taken from this Church and the Kingdom of God leaves us to our fate.

I say, rather than that apostates should flourish here, I will unsheath [sic] my bowie knife, and conquer or die! [Great commotion in the congregation, and a simultaneous burst of feeling, assenting to the declaration] Now, you nasty apostates, clear out, or judgment will be put to the line, and righteousness to the plummet! [Voices, generally, 'go it, go it.'] If you say it is right, raise your hands! [All hands up.] Let us call upon the Lord to assist us in this, and every good work!

If I had forty wives in the United States, they did not know it, and could not substantiate it, neither did I ask any lawyer, judge, or magistrate for them. I live above the law, and so do this people.

It is not the prerogative of the President of the United States to meddle with this matter, and Congress is not allowed, according to the [p.40] Constitution, to legislate upon it. If Utah was admitted into the Union as a sovereign State, and we chose to introduce slavery here, it is not their business to meddle with it; and even if we treated our slaves in an oppressive manner, it is still none of their business and they ought not to meddle with it.

To check the increase of our race has its advocates among the influential and powerful circles of society in our nation and in other nations. The same practice existed forty‑five years ago, and various devices were used by married persons to prevent the expenses and responsibilities of a family of children, which they must have incurred had they suffered nature's laws to rule pre‑eminent. That which was practised then in fear and against reproving conscience, is now boldly trumpeted abroad as one of the best means of ameliorating the miseries and sorrows of humanity. Infanticide is very prevalent in our nation. It is a crime that comes within the purview of the law, and is therefore not so boldly practised as is the other equally great crime, which, no doubt, to a great extent, prevents the necessity of infanticide. The unnatural style of living, the extensive use of narcotics, the attempts to destroy and dry up the fountains of life, are fast destroying the American element of the nation; it is passing away before the increase of the more healthy, robust, honest, and less sinful class of the people which are pouring into the country daily from the Old World. The wife of the servant man is the mother of eight or ten healthy children, while the wife of his master is the mother of one or two poor, sickly children, devoid of vitality and constitution, and, if daughters, unfit, in their turn, to be mothers, and the health and vitality which nature has denied them through the irregularities of their parents are not repaired in the least by their education.

In the days of Joseph [Smith] it was considered a great privilege to be permitted to speak to a member of Congress, but twenty‑six years will not pass away before the Elders of this Church will be as much thought of as the kings on their thrones.

I am no abolitionist, neither am I a proslavery man; I hate some of their principles and especially some of their conduct, as I do the gates of hell. The Southerners make the negroes, and the Northerners worship them; this is all the difference between slaveholders and abolitionists. I would like the President of the United States and all the world to hear this.

But meddle not with any man for his religion: all governments ought to permit every man to enjoy his religion unmolested. No man is authorized to take away life in consequence of difference of religion, which all laws and governments ought to tolerate and protect, right or wrong. Every man has a natural, and, in our country, a constitutional right to be a false prophet, as well as a true prophet. If I show, verily, that I have the truth of God, and show that ninety-nine out of every hundred professing religious ministers are false teachers, having no authority, while they pretend to hold the keys of God's kingdom on earth, and was to kill them because they are false teachers, it would deluge the whole world with blood.

I do not believe that the people of the North have any more right to say that the South shall not hold slaves, than the South have to say the North shall.... the first mention we have of slavery is found in the Holy Bible.... And so far from that prediction being averse to the mind of God, it [slavery] remains as a lasting monument of the decree of Jehovah, to the shame and confusion of all who have cried out against the South, in consequence of their holding the sons of Ham in servitude.

The Democrats have professed to be our friends, and they go to work to sustain the domestic institutions of the South and the rights of the people; but when they do that, the Republicans throw polygamy at them, and are determined to make them swallow that with the other. This makes the Democrats gag, and they have felt a strong desire to get rid of the "Mormon" question.

The [anti‑slavery] Republicans, you know, in the States, have been very fond for a long time of talking about a higher law of some kind. We, too, have a higher law, not a negro law particularly, but a law that emanates from God; a law that is calculated to promote the best interests and the happiness of this people, and of the world when they will listen to it.

In these days when there is a special trend among certain groups, including members of faculties of universities, to challenge the principles upon which our country has been founded and the philosophy of our Founding Fathers, I hope that Brigham Young University will stand as a bulwark in support of the principles of government as vouchsafed to us by our Constitutional Fathers.

David O. McKay, Letter from President David O. McKay to Ernest L. Wilkinson and the BYU Faculty

I am aware that a university has the responsibility of acquainting its students with the theories and doctrines which are prevalent in various disciplines, but I hope that no one on the faculty of Brigham Young University will advocate positions which cannot be harmonized with the views of every prophet of the Church, from the Prophet Joseph Smith on down, concerning our belief that we should be strong and self‑reliant individuals, not dependent upon the largess or benefactions of government. None of the doctrines of our Church gives any sanction to the concept of a socialistic state.

David O. McKay, Letter from President David O. McKay to Ernest L. Wilkinson and the BYU Faculty

It is part of our "Mormon" theology that the Constitution of the United States was divinely inspired; that our Republic came into existence through wise men raised up for that very purpose. We believe it is the duty of the members of the Church to see that this Republic is not subverted either by any sudden or constant erosion of those principles which gave this Nation its birth.

David O. McKay, Letter from President David O. McKay to Ernest L. Wilkinson and the BYU Faculty

I cannot help but think that there is a direct relationship between the present evil trends which I have above indicated, and the very marked tendency of the people of our country to pass on to the state the responsibility for their moral and economic welfare. This trend to a welfare state in which people look to and worship government more than their God, is certain to sap the individual ambitions and moral fiber of our youth unless they are warned and rewarned of the consequences. History, of course, is replete with the downfall of nations who, instead of assuming their own responsibility for their religious and economic welfare, mistakenly attempted to shift their individual responsibility to the government.

David O. McKay, Letter from President David O. McKay to Ernest L. Wilkinson and the BYU Faculty

It is indeed, a case of survival of the fittest, and it is only a matter of time before those who so strongly advocate and practice the pernicious doctrine of 'birth control' and the limiting of the number of children in the family, will have legislated themselves and their kind out of this mortal existence.

This recognition, together with the abandonment of the inspired Monroe Doctrine, gave the Red atheists a big diplomatic sanctuary for the coordination and direction of their propagandist spies and saboteurs. These promptly infiltrated every branch of our federal government and later every segment of our economy, and more recently have established a godless base 90 miles from our shores. Our recognition broke the ice of American resistance to the acceptance of the Kremlin gangsters into the international community as a legitimate government and so strengthened their iron grip upon the tortured people of Russia and her satellites.

This predicted gathering has three phases: the gathering of Israel to the land of Zion, the American hemisphere; the return of the Ten Tribes from the north countries; and the re‑establishment of the Jews in Palestine which has been long ago predicted by the prophets.

The 'common ground' of socialism and communism is a factor to which the American people should be alerted. Without a clear understanding that communism is socialism, the total threat and menace of the cold war can never be comprehended and fought to victory.

The tenth plank in Karl Marx's Manifesto for destroying our kind of civilization advocated the establishment of "free education for all children in public schools." There were several reasons why Marx wanted government to run the schools. Dr. A. A. Hodge pointed out one of them when he said, "It is capable of exact demonstration that if every party in the State has the right of excluding from public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing, no matter in how small a minority the atheists or agnostics may be. It is self‑evident that on this scheme, if it is consistently and persistently carried out in all parts of the country, the United States system of national popular education will be the most efficient and widespread instrument for the propagation of atheism which the world has ever seen."

During the first half of the twentieth century we have traveled far into the soul‑destroying land of socialism and made strange alliances through which we have become involved in almost continuous hot and cold wars over the whole of the earth.

It was boldly begun here in 1933 (November 16), when the United States announced our diplomatic recognition of atheistic Soviet Russia. For 15 years the United States had refused to recognize the godless Moscow Communists, for the reasons published at length in 1920 by Bainbridge Colby, Secretary of State in the administration of President Woodrow Wilson. In concluding his long letter of documentation and explanation, Colby had said this: "There cannot be any common ground upon which the Government of the United States can stand with a power whose conceptions are so entirely alien to our own, so utterly repugnant to our moral sense."

It is significant that 118 years ago this month the Prophet Joseph Smith, after attending lectures on socialism, made this official entry in church history: "I said I did not believe the doctrine" (History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 33).

What is the real cause of this trend toward the welfare state, toward more socialism? In the last analysis, in my judgment, it is personal unrighteousness.

Howard W. Hunter, "The Law of the Harvest", Devotional Address, Brigham Young University, 8 March 1966

In 1933, there was a movement in the United States to overturn the law which prohibited commerce in alcoholic beverages. When it came to a vote, Utah was the deciding state. President Heber J. Grant, then President of this Church, had pleaded with our people against voting to nullify Prohibition. It broke his heart when so many members of the Church in this state disregarded his counsel. How grateful, my brethren, I feel, how profoundly grateful for the tremendous faith of so many Latter‑day Saints who, when facing a major decision on which the Church has taken a stand, align themselves with that position.

Sex education belongs in the home, where parents can teach chastity in a spiritual environment as they reveal the facts of life to their children. There, in all plainness, the youngsters can be taught that procreation is part of the creative work of God and that, therefore, the act of replenishing the earth must be kept on the high plane of personal purity that God provides, free from all form of perversion.

They have not yet passed a law forbidding the Chinaman from emigrating to this country. Have the Latter‑day Saints sunk down so far beneath heathenism, that we must have the gate shut down upon us, and heathens by tens of thousands come swarming to our land? I do not, I cannot believe that the good sense of the American people can tolerate such persecution.

The people of Utah are the only ones in this nation who have taken effectual measures... to prevent adulteries and criminal connections between the sexes. The punishment, for these crimes is death to both male and female. And this law is written on the hearths and printed in the thoughts of the whole people.

The signs of the times are portentous and clearly indicate the approaching downfall of the nations, and the overturning of kingdoms, empires, and republics, preparatory to the coming of Christ and his personal reign on the earth.

Under these circumstances, as big a coward as I am, I would say what I pleased; and for one thing I would say that every man that had anything to do with such a filthy, unconstitutional affair was a damned scoundrel.
There is not a man, from the President of the United States to the Editors of their sanctorums, clear down to the low‑bred letter‑writers in this Territory, but would rob the coppers from a dead nigger's eyes, if they had a good opportunity. If I had the command of thunder and lightning, I would never let one of the damned scoundrels get here alive.

President Ezra Taft Benson has taught that "the Book of Mormon exposes the enemies of Christ. It confounds false doctrines and lays down contention. (See 2 Ne. 3:12.) It fortifies the humble followers of Christ against the evil designs, strategies, and doctrines of the devil in our day. The type of apostates in the Book of Mormon are similar to the type we have today. God, with his infinite foreknowledge, so molded the Book of Mormon that we might see the error and know how to combat false educational, political, religious, and philosophical concepts of our time." (Ensign, Jan. 1988, p. 3.)

Today, the world is permeated with philosophies similar to those taught by Korihor. We read them in books, see them championed in the movies and on television, and hear them taught in classrooms and sometimes in the churches of our time. Note just a few examples drawn from modern writings: "We believe that traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religions that place revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experience do a disservice to the human species. ... Traditional religions often offer solace to humans, but, as often, they inhibit humans from helping themselves or experiencing their full potentialities. ... Too often traditional faiths encourage dependence rather than independence." ("Humanist Manifesto II," The Humanist, Sept./Oct. 1973, pp. 5—6; compare Alma 30:14, 16, 27—28.) "Science affirms that the human species is an emergence from natural evolutionary forces. As far as we know, the total personality is a function of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context." (Ibid; compare Alma 30:17.) Here we see clear evidence of Mormon's inspiration to give us a full account of Korihor and his teachings. Korihor's teachings are old doctrine, and yet they are ideas as modern as today's high‑speed printing presses and satellite dishes.

Will the President [James Buchanan] that sits in the chair of state be tipped from his seat? Yes, he will die an untimely death, and God Almighty will curse him; and He will also curse his successor, if he takes the same anti‑Mormon stand.

I have not a doubt but there will be hundreds who will leave us and go away to our enemies. I wish they would go this fall: it might relieve us from much trouble; for if men turn traitors to God and His Servants, their blood will surely be shed, or else they will be damned, and that too according to their covenants.

This prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi, in his book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in N. York for the last ten years. He decides all the great controversies ‑ infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of freemasonry, republican government, and the rights of man. All these topics are repeatedly alluded to.

Some persons have a finely developed social conscience. They respond to social injustice and suffering with great concern, commitment, and generosity. This is surely a spiritual strength, something many of us need in greater measure. Yet persons who have this great quality need to be cautious that it not impel them to overstep other ultimate values. My social conscience should not cause me to coerce others to use their time or means to fulfill my objectives. We are not blessed for magnifying our calling with someone else's time or resources. We are commanded to love our neighbors, not to manipulate them, even for righteous purposes. In the same way, we should not feel alienated from our church or its leaders when they refrain from using the rhetoric of the social gospel or from allocating Church resources to purposes favored by others. We should remember that the Lord has given his restored Church a unique mission not given to others. We must concentrate our primary efforts on those activities that can only be accomplished with priesthood authority, such as preaching the gospel and redeeming the dead.

The Church opposes elective abortion for personal or social convenience. Our members are taught that, subject only to some very rare exceptions, they must not submit to, perform, encourage, pay for, or arrange for an abortion. That direction tells us what we need to do on the weightier matters of the law, the choices that will move us toward eternal life.

Dallin H. Oaks, "Weightier Matters," speech at Brigham Young University

A related distortion is seen in the practice of those who select a few sentences from the teachings of a prophet and use these to support their political agenda or other personal purposes. In doing so, they typically ignore the contrary implications of other prophetic words, or even the clear example of the prophet's own actions. For example, I have corresponded with several Church members who sought to use something President Benson is quoted as saying as a basis for refusing to file an income‑tax return or to pay income taxes. I have tried to persuade these persons that their interpretation cannot be what President Benson intended, because both he and his predecessors in that sacred office, and all of the General Authorities, have faithfully filed their income‑tax returns and paid the taxes required by law. The servants of God are under the Master's commands to follow him and to be examples to the flock (1 Timothy 4:12; 1 Peter 5:3). We should interpret their words in the light of their walk. To wrest the words of a prophet to support a private agenda, political or financial or otherwise, is to try to manipulate the prophet, not to follow him.

As a doctrinal principle, based on the scriptures, the Church affirms that marriage between a man and a woman is essential to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children. Sexual relations are proper only between a man and a woman who are legally and lawfully wedded as husband and wife. Any other sexual relations, including those between persons of the same gender, are sinful and undermine the divinely created institution of the family. The Church accordingly affirms defining marriage as the legal and lawful union between a man and a woman.

Your ideas, as we understand them, appear to contemplate the intermarriage of the Negro and white races, a concept which has heretofore been most repugnant to most normal‑minded people from the ancient patriarchs until now.... there is a growing tendency, particularly among some educators, as it manifests itself in this area, toward the breaking down of race barriers in the matter of intermarriage between whites and blacks, but it does not have the sanction of the Church and is contrary to Church doctrine.

In the 1940s C. S. Lewis, in his essay "We Have No 'Right' to Happiness,'" (God in the Dock) discusses this societal trend, adding, "Our sexual impulses are thus being put in a position of preposterous privilege. The sexual motive is taken to condone all sorts of behaviour which, if it had any other end in view, would be condemned as merciless, treacherous and unjust." He is right. If our society did not embrace irresponsible sexual freedom as happiness, but rather the pursuit of classic family life as happiness, a "gay" man's abandonment of his wife and children, an adulterous woman's convenience abortion, a public school teaching children that homosexuality is normal and having a father who objects arrested, a little boy being encouraged by the adults around him to dress and act as a girl in preparation for hormones and surgeries that will confuse and mutilate his healthy young body, and many other behaviors, would not be condoned as they now are, but summarily condemned as merciless, treacherous, and unjust.

Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham, The Pursuit of Happiness and the Fatal Principle

Our Declaration of Independence says that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But should people have a right to pursue their personal idea of happiness by any and every means? Of course not. Our society has all kinds of restrictions and outlaws a number of behaviors such as rape, murder, stealing, etc. The writers of the Declaration on which our country is founded meant that all people have the right to pursue happiness by lawful and moral means. [...] Increasingly, since the 1920s, the original meaning of the pursuit of happiness has been redefined, even high‑jacked, to include unlimited sexuality, the opposite of virtuous family life. We've seen how co‑habitation, out‑of wedlock pregnancy, divorce, abortion, homosexuality and the like, have become de‑stigmatized, then championed, all in the name of individual sexual freedom, fulfillment, or happiness.

We can learn a lot about gay activism by who they attack and why. Incredibly, some still openly deny the existence of a gay agenda, scoffing at the very idea. But of course there is a gay agenda. We see it playing out in our government, schools, entertainment media, and culture at large.

It's incredible to us at SoL that even those with resources, influence, and obligation avoid this topic like the plague. Many of our seemingly most moral and conservative leaders no longer take a stand on issues of sexual morality. They, quite irresponsibly, turn a blind eye to the tragic consequences for a society bent on sex, sex, and more sex. As a result, Lewis's prediction is coming true. To its detriment, as our society has settled on pushing and celebrating unlimited sexuality it has had no trouble pushing and celebrating every other preposterous entitlement men arbitrarily claim from society as a right: a "right" to marriage, a "right" to be a parent, a "right" to destroy the unborn, a "right" to own a house, a "right" to have a job, a "right" to free health care, a "right" for foreigners to break America's laws, and the list goes on. So much for the sense of personal responsibility needed to pursue real happiness.

Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham, The Pursuit of Happiness and the Fatal Principle

Of course licentiousness does not bring happiness, only misery, but we live in a blind and prideful society which values only itself and has abandoned its responsibilities to both past and future generations. Sexuality is now the one impulse that need not be bridled‑‑‑except perhaps where it is associated with marriage, ecclesiastical discipline, and sex crimes, and even these restrictions are fast fading away. We have rampant infidelity, open marriages, state‑recognized "gay marriage," churches softening and abandoning their doctrines, a growing gay clergy, and new laws and policies, local, state, and federal, reflecting ever‑widening boundaries for all manner of sex and sexuality for all ages.

Janice Graham, Standard of Liberty ‑ Stephen Graham and Janice Graham, The Pursuit of Happiness and the Fatal Principle

Shannon Laudie, of Pleasant Grove, UT was highlighted on the Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor email segment Friday, December 9, 2011. Here's what she wrote in response to Margaret Hoover's take on Pamela Anderson disrespecting Mary in a Nativity Scene comedy sketch on TV: "Margaret Hoover has a double standard. She wants children to respect gays, but believes Pamela Anderson's profane portrayal of the Virgin Mary is funny." Way to go, Shannon!

I pray ... that we will develop the understanding, the desire, and the courage, born of the Spirit, to eschew socialism and to support and sustain, in the manner revealed and as interpreted by the Lord, those just and holy principles embodied in the Constitution of the United States for the protection of all flesh, in the exercise of their God‑given agency.

If, in the meantime, socialism takes over in America, it will have to be displaced, if need be, by the power of God, because the United Order can never function under socialism or "the welfare state," for the good and sufficient reason that the principles upon which socialism and the United Order are conceived and operated are inimical.

No, brethren, socialism is not the United Order. However, notwithstanding my abhorrence of it, I am persuaded that socialism is the wave of the present and of the foreseeable future. It has already taken over or is contending for control in most nations.

As I recently reminded my wife of the moratorium on the United Order, which the Lord placed in 1834 (D&C 105:34), that socialism is taking over in the nations and that its expressed aims will surely fail, she spiritedly put to me the question: "Well, then, what would you suggest, that we just sit on our hands in despair and do nothing?" Perhaps similar questions have occurred to you. The answer is, "No, by no means!" We have much to do, and fortunately for us the Lord has definitely prescribed the course we should follow with respect to socialism and the United Order.

Now, not forgetting our duty to eschew socialism and support the just and holy principles of the Constitution, as directed by the Lord, I shall conclude these remarks with a few comments concerning what we should do about the United Order.

Morality in general and chastity particularly are outmoded. Man—so our children are told—is an animal, the product of biological evolution; his generative powers are not sacred and God‑given for the purpose of bringing God's spirit children into mortality, and therefore to be exercised within the limits divinely prescribed, as the gospel teaches, but they are playthings to be exploited and prostituted for the gratification of sensual and lustful desires. Courage, honesty, loyalty, patriotism, law and order—these and other elements of the divine nature are no longer revered as virtues.

Brother Taylor says that language cannot express the conduct, the feelings, and the spirit that are upon the people in the States. Well, suppose you take up a labor and swear about them, what are the worst words that can be spoken? 'Nigger stealing,' Mobs or Vigilance Committees, and Rotten‑hearted Administrators of a Government are three of the meanest and wickedest words that can be spoken. I expect that somebody will write that back to the States, as being treasonable, because spoken by a Latter‑day Saint.

My plea, then to the civil rights organizations and to all critics of the Mormon Church is: get off our backs! ... agitation over the 'Negro issue' by non‑Mormon groups, or even by Mormon liberals, is likely simply to increase the resistance to change.

When you think about the dramatic change that we took at the end of the 19th century ‑‑ we surrender plural marriage; we effectively surrender any kind of theocratic dreams, church control of the economy; many of these things disappear, or if they don't disappear they're severely mitigated, modulated ‑‑ the question is, have we lost those things altogether, or are they still there? My contention is that they're still there.

Where do loyalty and duty lie, for example, when your Stake President asks you as president of the Mormon Elders' Quorum to have your quorum distribute campaign pamphlets for a one‑senator‑per‑county reapportionment measure ‑ a measure you strongly disapprove?... What should your reaction be when an Apostle of the Church uses the pulpit at General Conference to charge the President of the United States, whom you worked to elect, with unconstitutional programs which are leading the nation to socialism?

J. D. Williams, Separation of Church and State in Mormon Theory and Practice, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, v.1, Summer 1966, p. 30‑31

This applies also to the polity, the citizens at large. Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society. The goal of the polity is not to put homosexuals in jail. The goal is to discourage people from engaging in homosexual practices in the first place, and, when they nevertheless proceed in their homosexual behavior, to encourage them to do so discreetly, so as not to shake the confidence of the community in the polity's ability to provide rules for safe, stable, dependable marriage and family relationships.

The new handbook makes a clear distinction between same‑sex orientation and behavior. It eliminates the suggestion, mentioned in a 2006 edition, that same‑sex relationships "distort loving relationships" and that gays should repent of their "homosexual thoughts or feelings." It also says that celibate gay Mormons who are "worthy and qualified in every other way" should be allowed to have "callings," or church assignments, and to participate fully in temple rituals.

Also, the gospel was not carried to this segregated black group... the Negroes tread the earth with black dishonorable bodies as a judgment of God because at the time of decision in the pre‑existence they were faint‑hearted and exhibited an infirmity of purpose — they were not valiant in the cause of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, they were entitled to no better earthly lineage than that of the first early murderer, Cain. They were to be the 'servant of servants.' They were to be segregated. No effort was made to carry the gospel to them as a people.

Even Joseph's 'calling for the end of slavery by 1850' in his Presidential campaign is not so liberal as Brodie supposes.... Joseph Smith was, therefore, to some degree a racist, a segregationist, a colonizer, and only incidentally a supporter of abolition. He had some elements of liberalism in his thinking, but these had definite limits. His record... is marked with ambiguity.

The late sixties found Brigham Young University the focal point of militant protests. Sports events provided the context for protests, boycotts, disrupted games, mass demonstrations, and "riots." At one point the conflict among schools within the Western Athletic Conference became so intense that the conference almost disbanded. Administrators, already embroiled in student demonstrations over Vietnam, began to separate themselves from the Mormon school. Stanford University, for instance, severed all relations with Brigham Young University.

The revelation that the church is talking about with respect to the Negro and the priesthood should have been sought 50 years ago — not now when we are forced into looking for one. Even if a revelation should come now, we have compromised our position because it looks as if we have been forced into seeking it, which will be true.

The Saints would have been so much better off if they had never gone near Missouri because they... compromised their position by adopting an idea that already prevailed... that 'Negroes are cursed with a black skin and that they are intended as the curse of Noah on Canaan goes, to be servant of servants.'

Sterling M. McMurrin, "The Mormon Doctrine and the Negro," address given to the Salt Lake Branch of the NAACP., March 1969

Spencer W. Kimball for his incorrect press release concerning the police involvement combined with the LDS church's efforts to restrict Douglas A. Wallace from the temple grounds, specifically the Tabernacle, on April 3, 1977. His denial of these actions is wrong. Any man who can take such actions and still call himself a prophet deserves more than I to be confined to this wheelchair.

Was this change of doctrine really a revelation from the Lord, or did the church leaders act on their own? Why don't they publish that revelation and let the Lord speak in his own words? All we saw was a statement of the First Presidency, and that is not how a revelation looks. "When God speaks the revelation starts with the words: 'Thus sayeth the Lord....' It seems when the Lord decides to change a doctrine of such great importance he will talk himself to the people of his church. If such a revelation cannot be presented to the members it is obvious that the First Presidency acted on its own, most likely under fear of public pressure to avoid problems of serious consequences and to maintain peace and popularity with the world.

Well, if I understand Elder McConkie, he was saying that, although earlier Church leader's never believed, preached, or practiced blood atonement, we actually do believe in it and would practice it if we had the legal and political power to do so. (Even thought we didn't when Brigham Young presided over the theocratic territory of Deseret.)

Twice a day at Brigham Young University the campus stands still while the American flag is raised or lowered, the national anthem ringing out from loudspeakers mounted atop campus buildings. The patriotic display is, typically, the only disruption at the Mormon church‑owned school—rated "Most Nostalgic for the Reagan Era" by the Princeton Review—whose sprawling grounds are nestled against the Wasatch Front of the Rocky Mountains. A single student refusing to stop for the flag ceremony can generate a mild stream of protest letters to the official campus newspaper, the Daily Universe.

Bryan Waterman, The Lord's University: Freedom and Authority at BYU, December 15, 1998

Operating within an understanding of national events that saw both "campus unrest" and Democratic party victories as signs of a looming socialist state, Wilkinson returned to BYU from his failed political venture. In May 1965, at the end of his first semester back in office, he delivered an apocalyptic commencement address: "The Decline and Possible Fall of the American Republic." Citing rising rates of crime, juvenile delinquency, immorality, divorce, and public welfare, the president blamed these "evidences of moral decay" on the steady increase of federal power beginning with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and extending to Lyndon Johnson's views on social security. Together with the "confiscatory" nature of income tax, an increase of Supreme Court influence, and the federal government's "deficit financing," these proofs (in Wilkinson's mind) of federally funded moral decline spelled the end of cherished American freedoms.

Bryan Waterman, The Lord's University: Freedom and Authority at BYU, December 15, 1998

The Mormon tradition of celebrating the church's educational endeavors has some roots in pre‑Utah Mormon history, but dates most certainly from turn‑of‑the‑century debates over public schooling in Utah territory. When church leaders realized that the non‑Mormons among them had enough political power to make public schooling inevitable, they threw their weight into the public school movement and launched a public relations campaign to portray Mormons as "friends of education." In the early 1890s, following the church's disavowal of polygamy, leaders invited a number of prominent American educators, such as Harvard president Charles Eliot, to Utah to see for themselves if Mormonism's success depended on ignorant masses, as newspapers of the day claimed. Forgetting that Utah's public schools would not have existed without "gentile" (non‑Mormon) prodding, church leaders welcomed the praise the state's schools received during a 1913 National Education Association conference in Salt Lake City. In 1915 Mormons marked the entrance to Utah's exhibit at the Panama‑Pacific Exposition in San Francisco with Brigham Young's aphorism: "Education is the power to think clearly; the power to act well in the world's work, and the power to appreciate life." The church's reputation also benefitted from attention given to the "Utah Plan," a model educational system ("social uplift with a vengeance," in one historian's view) for the national Progressive Education movement in the 1920s. By the 1947 centennial of the Mormon pioneers' entry into the Salt Lake Valley, high claims for Mormon education (or Utah education) were commonplace among church members; mid‑twentieth‑century Mormon leaders pointed to LDS and Utah educational success as a sign of the church's divine nature, claiming that "the Latter‑day Saints present a picture of educational achievement second to none in Ame

Bryan Waterman, The Lord's University: Freedom and Authority at BYU, December 15, 1998

Wilkinson based his address largely on the words of Mormon leaders from Joseph Smith to the current church president and ardent cold warrior, David O. McKay. In particular he emphasized a "prophecy attributed to the Prophet Joseph that the Constitution of the United States would hang by a single thread, but be saved by the Elders of Israel," meaning church leaders and Mormon men generally. Having failed in his bid for public office, Wilkinson sought to act on "the duty of a university president" in "times of national and world crisis ... to speak forth boldly in behalf of what he considers to be the truth." Confessing his belief that "my generation has failed you [graduates] in preserving and strengthening the Constitution," Wilkinson vowed that he would mail copies of his talk, along with a compendium of anti‑communist "prophetic utterances," to every graduate, "with the hope that you may help stem the tide that is now engulfing our country."

Bryan Waterman, The Lord's University: Freedom and Authority at BYU, December 15, 1998

We are democratic in our concepts of the Church, but we are not a democracy; we are a kingdom, the Church and kingdom of God on earth.

I hope Brother [Mark E.] Petersen will pardon me—but this is not a democracy; this is not a republic; this is a kingdom of God. The President of the Church is his premier, if you will, his agent, his possessor of the keys. Our free agency which we have does not make us any more nor less than subjects of the Kingdom and subjects we are,—not citizens, Brother Mark.

Young women, you will be the ones who will provide the example of virtuous womanhood and motherhood. You will continue to be virtuous, lovely, praiseworthy and of good report. You will also be the ones to provide an example of family life in a time when families are under attack, being redefined and disintegrating. You will understand your roles and your responsibilities and thus will see no need to lobby for rights.